Muse

Chapter 41

*Trigger Warning: Scenes depicting violence, assault, drug usage, and mild gore are shown in this chapter! Discretion is advised!*

Rainwater misted the ground when I arrived at the Radio Kaikan Building. It had been drizzling on and off outside that I used one of the plastic umbrella bags they always kept at the entrance to carry my damp duck umbrella. The arches of my feet had nearly been rubbed raw inside my Birkenstocks, but I pressed on. Even if I had predicted the sudden spring rain, I never wore the right shoes for it anyways.

I texted my sister that if I didn't check in at a specific time to be concerned, a safety measure we'd put in place for each other for dates and meet-ups. I had to talk myself down at least five times before I went through with the meeting; even if I had been friends with him for eleven years, I still didn't technically know the real SmallMight. Regardless of my paranoia, I was overall feeling good and ready to face the day, whatever came. Finally, I was going to meet SmallMight39.

"I can do this. I can do this," I repeated the mantra to myself, trying to drown out the sound pollution of the building with my noise cancelling headphones and Disney show-tunes. After playing Kingdom Hearts, it was surreal hearing Roxas singing in my ear, but Jesse McCartney's version of "I'll Try" was much more uplifting than the depressing original by Jonatha Brooke, and it gave me more motivation to actually go through with the meeting. I had scheduled the meet-up two hours after I clocked out from work at five on purpose, giving me time to calm down and to not risk being late and missing my online friend altogether. Of course now that meant I was saddled with the anxiety of waiting, so I spent the next hour and a half shopping in one of the figure stores. Walking down the rows of gachapon, I spied the row where I'd met Izuku officially for the second time and thought of the old proverb of 'strangers are just friends you haven't met yet,' grinning wryly at just how accurate the saying was. Eying the shelf of All Might figures, I noticed a small display of them I hadn't seen before, one that had a label for Might-T at the bottom, and quickly scribbled the number of one of them on the back of my hand to purchase later.

Watching the various customers peruse through the eclectic wares, I ruminated over which person was the online friend I'd talked with for over a decade and who was here to shop. My eyes landed on a bulky, blonde man in a dark grey overcoat and a face mask hovering by the more ecchi figurines of Uwabami and wonder objectively if he fit the bill, recalling a conversation comparing my mother's oncologist to the pro-heroine's Serpentress Quirk. While I could appreciate the craftsmanship that went into making the figures, the way he was aiming and snapping photos of the more gratuitous panty shots of the blonde snake hero with his cellphone made me keep a wide berth. It's not like I had a thing against overweight men, but it was difficult to convince people that otakus weren't all creepy, pervy neck-beards that lived in their parents' basement when examples like this kept bringing down the curve. I quickly admonished myself for this line of thinking, knowing that I, of all people, had no right to judge others solely based on appearances when I was guilty of similar, misunderstood behaviors.

Then it occurred to me- in all the excitement, I had not once specified what I looked like. I quickly PM'd SmallMight39 a message describing myself as 'the tall, curvy brunette girl wearing the white Assassin's Creed hoodie and denim jeans,' realizing belatedly after sending it that I resembled a gender-bent version of Desmond Miles if he had a ponytail, glasses, was overweight, and wore Melissa McCarthy blue jeans. I still had time before we met up at the Ginza Lion restaurant in the basement level, and while I wasn't overly fond of meeting people at a pub, it was public and a decent place to recharge after being overwhelmed by so much anime merch crammed into one building.

Hungry but not willing to buy dinner just yet, I decided to pick up a quick snack from the ground floor convenience store. I refrained from selecting the common salmon onigiri after an incident involving accidentally purchasing a mayo flavored one by mistake during a closing shift at Enterprise with my remaining pocket money, and instead chose two fried riceballs.